New Labour's Old Roots: Revisionist Thinkers in Labour's History 1930-1997 - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0907845894 ISBN 13: 9780907845898

Publisher: Imprint Academic, 2004

Synopsis

New Labour was not conjured up out of thin air — it only looks like that because of the party's amnesia concerning its intellectual development. This book provides extracts from fifteen thinkers located within the revisionist tradition as an antidote to that amnesia. It is an 'all star cast’ from Labour’s history, from Tawney, Jay and Gaitskell to Gordon Brown.The collection shows that revisionism is not a body of doctrine but a cast of mind that distinguishes between core values (ends) and policy instruments (means) — revisionist thinkers do not shrink from abandoning any policy that fails to deliver the desired ends. In the contentious debates about the future of public services, the Blair government is determined to avoid the confusion of means and ends. These essays show this determination to be deep-rooted in Labour thinking and to be focused on the commitment to equality.

About this title

About the Author

Patrick Diamond is Special Adviser in the Prime Minister s Office, 10 Downing Street.

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Preface

This book is an exploration of some historical problems of the British Labour Party, and their relation to some of the current concerns of British politics and the British state. It examines the British revisionist tradition and the emergence of New Labour as a strategy to re-cast the historical Labour Party.

With New Labour, it could at last become a successful party of government, undertaking a transformation of British politics, and averting Britain s long-term economic and social decline. The book nonetheless argues that such a revolution is far from complete.

As a body of work, it is concerned with Labour s ideological development as a social democratic party, and does not put the record of the Labour Government since 1997 to the revisionist test. That task awaits us.

These arguments are explored by reproducing revisionist arguments taken from their original sources, charting the course of the party s ideological transformation since 1931. The editor has written an introduction to each extract, as a guide to each thinker s contribution to debates about revisionism.

This is a specific, and relatively narrow, method for the historian of political ideas. Some attention is also paid to such published sources as the books, pamphlets, and periodicals that are the main receptacles of British social democratic thought during this period.

The study draws additionally on diaries and biographical material, as well as interviews with several of the leading protagonists in the ideological debates of these years. Many friends and colleagues have helped me to write this book. I am grateful to them all. Special thanks go to Claire McCarthy, without whom it would simply not have been possible.

My intellectual debts are too many to mention though special reference goes to Professor Peter Clarke and Professor Andrew Gamble. Their influence will be apparent throughout this book.

The original style of each essay has been retained, despite the presence of language that is now considered sexist. It is a male- dominated affair, reflecting the dominance of men in the post-war Labour Party a situation that it is hoped New Labour will reverse.

This book is not uncritical either of the revisionists or New Labour. It was put together in the belief that socialist ideas are greater and more important than whoever happens to be leader of the Labour Party, or in the Labour Cabinet at any one time.

A party of blind obedience and mindless loyalty has no long-term future. PD May 2004

Edition details

• Publisher: Imprint Academic
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0907845894
• ISBN 13: 9780907845898
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 200
• Editor: Diamond Patrick